Effects of the rebounding of a striking ship on structural crashworthiness during ship-ship collision

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to study the rebounding phenomenon of a striking ship and its effect on the structural crashworthiness of the struck ship. Pioneer works on ship collision and mathematical formulations to assess energy after collision are described to summarize the behaviour of the ship structure under collision between ships in various scenarios. A benchmark study is conducted using laboratory tests of the resistance to penetration of a stiffened plate to validate the methodology of the present work, which uses finite element methods to model a series of dynamic collision scenarios. The setting and configuration of a full-scale collision analysis is introduced, along with the configurations of the defined scenarios. External and internal ship collision parameters are considered as parameters that will affect structural behaviour prior to and after ruptures. The results of the evaluation indicate that in the event of a side collision, the striking ship can either fully stuck or rebounding phenomena. These phenomena produce significant differences in term of internal energy and crushing force, which are included as crashworthiness criteria. The type of striking ship, as well as its velocity, significantly affects the rebounding of the striking ship and behaviour of the struck ship. A notable gap between medium and high-carbon steels is not found during observations of the structural crashworthiness accounting for structure materials. Finally, other criteria for assessing the mechanisms and effects of rebounding during a collision are summarized, i.e. kinetic energy, acceleration, and extent of damage.